Headhunters Read online

  I turned back and saw them hauling the Audi up from the hillside. It was wrecked too. What did it matter now?

  “Mr. Parks?” a voice said behind me. “Simon Parks?”

  I turned. It was a man who had identified himself as the senior officer on the scene earlier.

  “Yes,” I answered, my voice cracking.

  “We can offer you a ride home, sir.”

  I nodded. I followed him to his squad car and wondered if I should get in the back, but he held the passenger door open for me in the front seat so I took it.

  We didn’t talk as he drove me home. I just stared out the window. The lights rolled past me one after another. I didn’t try to take anything in, but rather let it wash over me. Before I realized it, we were at home.

  I thanked the officer and handed back the blanket. With some difficulty I unlocked the door and let myself inside.

  Everything that was so mundane before reminded me of Claire now. She had not been the best housekeeper in the world, but now every dish, every corner reminded me of her. My heart ached in my chest just to have another moment with her. I groaned and dropped my useless car keys on the table. I emptied my pockets. My money clip, cell phone and security pass all fell to the table, worthless to me now.

  I walked through the living room and saw the picture of us together on the mantel. I kissed her face in the picture, considered putting it back and then just kept it under my arm as I went upstairs.

  I took the steps slowly, my body beginning to ache as the adrenalin began to drain. I was tired and my neck was going to hurt like hell in the morning from the car crash. My hand still throbbed, but it was more annoyance than real agony.

  I came into our bedroom and stood in the doorway for a moment. I groaned at the thought of being without her and fell into the bed. I laid the picture beside me and buried my face in her pillow and inhaled her scent. Just hours ago she’d been here…

  I stayed there all night, holding her pillow, looking at her picture. I listened to the clock tick. And I had no idea what else to do next. What do you do when the love of your life is gone forever?

  As the sun shone in through the window, I finally got up. I stretched and walked around the bed to my closet. On the top shelf was a steel box with a numeric keypad on it. I keyed in the numbers and opened the box.

  Inside was a small black Glock 26 pistol. It was mine. I’d been issued it years before. I had used it twice in the course of my government service and swore that I’d never use it again. After the first time, I couldn’t watch television for six months. Hollywood violence just has no appeal when you’ve seen the real thing.

  This pistol was loaded with 9mm 115-grain jacketed hollow-point bullets. They were designed to rip through flesh and bone and cause a maximum amount of damage. They were inherently lethal. And right now… at this moment, the thought of using the pistol on myself was not entirely out of the question.

  But in that moment, looking into that box, I hadn’t heard the door open downstairs. I hadn’t heard the footsteps approach. In the end, all I heard was the voice behind me.

  “Daddy?”

  Chapter Two

  I held my children’s hands at my wife’s funeral. David stood on my right. Melissa on my left. Thinking back on it now, perhaps I should have had Alaina watch them, keep them at home and away from all this, but considering how much I’d been absent… considering that they’d just lost their mother… well, dammit, it just seemed right.

  We stood together at the graveside ceremony. Alaina was by my side. I wondered what she thought of me, of the situation. Did she know what had gone on behind the closed doors all those years? I knew we’d talk when there was time. Alaina, God bless her, was a crutch to me. It was as if I’d lost a limb and had to lean on her so that I didn’t collapse completely.

  The sun was shining. It had been raining on the night of her death. Now the sun was shining. This world made no sense to me.

  The preacher was giving the eulogy and while I heard him… I did not listen. There’s something I hate about funerals. The people left behind after a loved one passes, usually knew that man, that woman. Knew them well enough that they know what sounds right when talking about them, and they know what’s bullshit meant to comfort those left behind. When my grandmother had died, the mortician had put nail polish on her hands… she had been a farmer’s wife, a gardener in later years, she worked in the dirt and had never worn nail polish a day in her life. In death, it was completely out of character.

  So it was with Claire’s eulogy. True, she was in a better place. True, she was loved and would be missed. But this man didn’t know her. Hadn’t talked to her. It should have been me up there telling everyone about the woman that they loved. It should have been me. But I could only stand there. It was if I was chained to my place, unable to move.

  I heard Melissa quietly crying, then David. I gathered them in my arms and held them and we cried together. One family, inseparable.

  “I miss Mommy,” Mel whispered to me, her face tucked into my shoulder.

  “I do too, baby.”

  “Are you going to stay with us, Dad?” David asked. His voice was soft and innocent and while I knew he wasn’t accusing me, I felt the pain of his question sink into my heart.

  “Yeah, buddy. I’m staying here.”

  I held them both to me then and looked up to the sky. I don’t claim to understand God’s ways. I don’t claim to be a righteous man. But I knew in that moment that if God wasn’t protecting my family, I would be. I’d never leave them again. I’d never let things spiral out of control the way they had.

  ***

  As I led the kids to the car after the funeral, I noticed a navy sedan in the back of the line of cars. I looked straight ahead, careful not to look right at them. When the minister approached on my left to express his condolences, I took the opportunity to glance over his shoulder at the car. The vehicle carried two young men in suits and Ray-Ban sunglasses. The plates were G13 government issue.

  I cursed under my breath and kept walking.

  “Okay, guys, in the car,” I said to the kids. David and Mel piled in and put on their seatbelts by themselves. They were getting so big. I remembered when Claire and I had gone shopping together to pick out car seats, then booster seats. Now they could do it all by themselves. It amazed me how they grew up right in front of you; how you had to struggle to keep up, to not just let the time flow and get away from you.

  I turned to Alaina and tossed her the keys. She caught them but gave me a quizzical look. I’m a control freak and she knew it.

  “You want me to drive?” she asked. Alaina was in her mid-20s and while I trusted her implicitly with my children, I was known to be a bit of a nut when it came to driving. If I was going to be in a moving vehicle, I wanted to be behind the wheel.

  “You drive,” I said. She smiled and was about to get in. “Hey, Alaina?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Do you know what I do for a living?”

  “Not really.”

  I nodded. Alaina didn’t especially care as long as she got paid every week. To some extent that was just fine.

  “OK, well, there might be some people from my office that want to visit with me, so if I happen to mention it, be a dear and get the kids home safely okay?”

  Alaina shrugged, “Okay.”

  We got into the car and Alaina pulled out and headed for home.

  I’m no expert in countersurveillance by any means, but when someone is following me through traffic in a dark sedan with government plates, I can usually tell. The federal agents stayed a few cars back, but every time I looked back, they were there. Sometimes in our lane, sometimes the left or the right, but always there.

  I was going to need to do something about this. I didn’t want to bring home a carload of feds to my doorstep. Not today. Not like this. I needed to find a way to dissuade them. I knew why they were there or at least I suspected, which in my business is enough.

  “Ala
ina, do you have that flashlight I gave you?” I asked.

  “Sure, it’s under your seat.”

  I fished under my seat on the passenger side and pulled out a six-inch black Maglite flashlight. I’d given it to Alaina in case she ever had car trouble at night. I wanted to keep her safe. Today, it might just keep my family safe.

  I waited until the traffic had thinned and spotted a light up ahead turning red. The sedan had no choice and pulled to a stop behind us at the light. I looked over at Alaina and caught her attention.

  “Take the kids home. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  I waited until the light turned green and launched myself out of the car, marching straight at the government boys behind me. Their faces went slack in shock. In my left hand, I had the Maglite flashlight. Hidden in my right hand, my cell phone. I never broke stride until I slammed the flashlight into the driver’s side window, covering the two agents in shattered glass. Before the driver could recover, I grabbed him by the tie and jerked him toward me. I jammed the cell phone into the side of his throat, so neither he nor his partner could see what it was.

  “Move and I’ll kill you,” I growled.

  The agent in the passenger’s seat was leaning forward, working at getting a better angle on drawing his sidearm. He was watching me, weighing me.

  “Put your hands on the dashboard or I will shoot you in the face!” My commands were loud and gruff, designed to dominate and cause my opponent to be overwhelmed. “Do you understand me? Do it now!”

  Both men complied immediately. They were well trained but that also meant that they responded to people who gave orders.

  “Who sent you?” I asked. “Who??”

  “Kendrick. Randall Kendrick,” gave up the driver.

  Aw, crap. I could have dealt with a lot of bullshit on any given day, but being followed by a security detail assigned by Randall Kendrick was just about the worst case scenario. Randall Kendrick was my boss.

  I weighed my options. I had intended to contact Kendrick anyway. He obviously had an interest in what was going on with me. And he had a shred of decency in him if he didn’t show up out of respect for my family.

  One way or another, I was going to have to deal with this. My plan had been sketched in pencil before, but now it was becoming crystal clear what I was going to have to do.

  “Have Kendrick meet me. Tonight at nine. Tell him to meet me at the park bench where we do lunch. Got it?”

  “Got it,” grunted the driver.

  I released his tie and he took a gasping breath. I dropped my cell back into my pocket before he could see that I was bluffing. I started to walk away, thought twice, leaned back into the car and grabbed the gear shift on the steering column. I cranked back hard on it, felt the metal bend, then break under the pressure.

  “And stop following me.”

  I threw the severed gear shift down in the street and disappeared into traffic. I ran across the street, jumped on a city bus going in the opposite direction and got off half a mile later. I walked down an alley, emerged from the other side and hailed a cab. We circled the park twice until I was certain that no one was following me, then directed the driver to drop me at my house. He let me out half a mile away and I walked the remainder home, watching for cars, anyone on foot, anything that looked suspicious. Seeing nothing, I approached my door, opened it and slipped inside.

  The kids were waiting, having a snack at the dinner table. I tried not to think about Alaina driving the car, but on the other hand, was happy to have them home. We’d play games, Scrabble, checkers, whatever they wanted, then off to bed. I still had one last appointment to keep for the day.

  ***

  David had gone to sleep easily. He was always a good soldier. He followed his routine. A kiss goodnight, a hug, brush his teeth, a book in bed, a little prayer and he was sound asleep before I walked out of his room. He was a good boy.

  Melissa was… well, Melissa. She was very much like her mother had been. Full of questions, full of thoughts. Some worries, some speculations. But everything needed to be addressed before her mind would quiet and she could finally rest. Today was worse than usual, and I expected that. I expected them to both pile into my bed sometime during the night as they tended to do. And that would be fine. But for right now, I needed an hour to myself. Melissa finally relented and closed her eyes and went to sleep.

  I closed her door ever so quietly and turned to go down the hallway when I saw Alaina waiting for me. She was a fulltime, in-house nanny. She had her own quarters. I appreciated her for what she did. But I needed time now to be away.

  “Hi, what’s up?” I asked. I tried not to let the exhaustion in my voice sound like impatience.

  Alaina shuffled nervously, glanced at me, then away, then back. I expected this was coming and she was right to wait until the kids were in bed.

  “Simon?” Alaina rarely called me by my first name. I didn’t care, but we maintained a professional distance. There was something on her mind. “What happened out there today? With that car? And those men? I mean, you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but I’m just… curious.”

  I smiled at her and looked down at my hands and realized I was fidgeting with my keys. I’d never needed to explain what I did before. Work had never followed me home before. I left it at the office, or if it was a business trip, I left it behind before I got back. Now, it was different. Now the job had reached out and destroyed part of my life and was ready to stay with me for as long as I’d let it. I couldn’t let that happen.

  “I’ve been under a lot of pressure lately… with Claire…” I didn’t finish the sentence but I didn’t have to. Alaina was nodding, ready to believe what I told her. “Those men today… work for my boss. He wants to make sure that I’m okay. Safe. Well looked after. I just didn’t want them near us. Not today. Know what I mean?”

  “Sure, of course,” Alaina said, and she seemed genuine.

  “My family comes first. And you’re a part of that. Thank you for watching after my kids.” She nodded, relieved in a way, I’m sure. I wasn’t flipping out. I wasn’t psychotic. I was just keeping the family safe. “Things… are going to be different now with Claire gone. And I’d like to talk with you about that. OK? About what that might mean? The kids really love you and I could really use some help.”

  Alaina smiled and wiped away a tear. She was like a daughter to me.

  “I’ll be back. I shouldn’t be long,” I said and headed for the door. I stepped outside, stopped and leaned back in.

  “Alaina? Can I borrow your car?”

  ***

  I sat on the park bench and waited for Kendrick. The man was a legend, but only among his closest associates. Beyond that, he wasn’t known at all. He stayed behind the scenes. He handled a thousand tasks every day and never dropped the ball once. I was his right hand man. His confidante. His conscience and his confessor. And right at this very moment, I was scared to death to talk to him.

  Randall Kendrick appeared out of the darkness as if he’d been born there. He was well over six feet tall and frighteningly thin. His hair had gone white, but there was a strength in his face that belayed his years.

  I knew the man for a long time. Before he became what he was that day, Kendrick had been a good man, a good husband. Someone to joke with, to golf with. But things changed.

  For Kendrick, they changed on September 11th, 2001. His wife had been working in Tower 1 that morning. Her body eventually was identified. I was with him when he saw the news report. I put my arm around him as a friend as we watched the towers fall. Something broke in him that day. Something that never got fixed.

  He became harder after that. Others may not have noticed it, but I did. There was a desperate sadness, but beneath that was rage. A rage so deep and so black, you could reach into it and never find the bottom.

  Five days after her body was identified, Kendrick approached the Director of the National Security Agency. They’d plotted and schemed and eventua
lly, practically under the cover of night, a civilian division was created. In much the same way that independent military contractors were used in Iraq, we became the first and only independent civilian intelligence service. We worked outside of the purview of the NSA or CIA. Funds were diverted through offshore accounts. And our company was born.

  Kendrick’s wife’s name was Rose. On the day that Kendrick told me about the company, he told me that if there had only been an agency that could work to defend this country the way it ought to be defended, Rose wouldn’t have died. To protect people like his Rose, Kendrick created Blackthorn, Inc.

  We were a civilian subcontractor for domestic intelligence operations. We were our own anti-terrorist cell. Kendrick ran the operations. I recruited the talent. We didn’t require congressional oversight. We did what needed to be done.

  I recruited underground software developers, hackers, crackers, anyone who could exploit the weaknesses in databases for banks and foreign powers. We captured phone conversations, broke into confidential records, e-mail accounts, whatever it took to track threats to national security. We re-tasked government satellites at will. Our chain of command was short. The red tape nearly non-existent.

  And in each of our files, we held presidential pardons in the event we were ever caught.

  “You were a little rough on our boys today, buddy,” Kendrick drawled. He still talked like a southern college football coach.

  “I’ve had a rough couple of days.”

  “I’m deeply sorry about that, Simon.”

  “I know.”

  “I’ve prayed for you and your family.”

  I smiled. God and I weren’t on speaking terms.

  “I think we need to talk about something,” I said.

  “Alright, then.”

  Kendrick settled beside me on the bench and we sat for a moment looking over the pond before us. I wondered for a second if anyone was watching or if he’d come alone. I scanned the tree line and then realized that if anyone were there, I wouldn’t see them until it was too late. I turned and faced Kendrick.